How to lucid dream
Do you want to control your dream? This sounds magical, doesn't it? But it’s not magic, it’s called lucid dreaming. You are aware you are dreaming and can influence what's happening!
Whether the concept is new to you, or you are an expert of enchanted sleep, #lucid dreaming is becoming more and more popular. The Consciousness and Cognition journal published a review in 2016, estimating that 55% of adults have had lucid dreams at least once, and over 20% have lucid dreams once a month or more.
Lucid #dream typically happens during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During REM, starting about 90 minutes after falling asleep, your eyes dart from side to side, your breathing and heartbeat become faster. This is the last stage of the sleep cycle when your brain is active, triggering dreams.
Lucid dreaming is a way to support general wellness, heal past experience, inspire creative projects, and explore the unconscious mind. Many psychotherapists and hypnotherapists are currently using to help clients living with anxiety, trauma, and phobias.
Although the term was first coined in 1913 by Dutch psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden’s 1913 book ‘A Study Of Dreams.’, the history of it goes as far back as the eighth century when Tibetan Buddhists used a style of dream yoga to tap into the power of lucid dreaming. The Tibetan Buddhists of this era believed that the lucid dream state is the highest level of conscious awareness one can achieve. After the studies from Harvard and Stanford in the US in the 1970s, the global scientific community recognized the practice. A 2011 study of almost 1,000 German adults that about half had experienced one or more lucid dreams in their lifetime.
What induces to lucid dreams
So lucid dreaming is available for everyone, but most of us struggle with it. Why?
Although lucid dreams might happen to you spontaneously, internal and external triggers can cause it and stimulation that you can learn. For example, an external trigger can be a sleep mask that can produce light stimuli. Internal triggers are usually caused by your hard work. That’s right.
Don't despair, we’re not natural lucid dreamers as well! There are some methods to induce them! Let's get started!
How to encourage lucid dreams
“For the lucky few who learn to become lucid and control their dreams, they can literally do anything they want.”
1. Reality Testing
Performing a reality check constantly challenges your brain to differentiate a sleep state of reality. To experience lucid dreams, you have to train your brain to be aware of when it’s dreaming. It increases metacognition by training your mind to notice your own awareness.
According to Cognitive Neuropsychiatry Trusted Source, your brain has to be better equipped to identify between the sleep and wake state. Lucid dream experts suggest doing certain activities to test your sense of reality at least 10 times a day, to enhance your ability to lucid dream at night.
You can follow these steps several times of day:
Ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?
Check your environment to confirm whether you are dreaming. You can look at the clock to check the time and look away, then look again. During lucid dreams, time will probably jump forward or backwards.
Notice your own consciousness and how you’re engaging with your surroundings, such as a mirror. You can watch your hands and feet. If you notice something strange, you might lucid dream.
2. Wake Back to Bed (WBTB)
In this technique, you set an alarm five or six hours after your bedtime and go to sleep as usual. When the alarm clock rings, you wake up for 30 minutes during the REM stage of your sleep. You can read a book or engage in a mindful activity at this stage. Then go back to sleep again, try to stay mindful as you drift off - doing a body scan meditation can help achieve this - and you’ll be more likely to lucid dream. While you’re awake, choose any activity that requires full alertness.
3. Mnemonic induction of lucid dreams (MILD)
The MILD (mnemonic induction to lucid dreaming) is a really simple technique, which requires setting an intention that you will lucid dream when you go to bed.
Before bedtime, lay down and relax, and try to think of some recent dream. Spend a minute repeating to yourself that you will remember when you are dreaming like “Today I lucid dream and remember that what I’m dreaming”. This repetition can help condition the brain to become alert when you dream so you can enter a lucid dream state.
4. Maintain a dream journal
The more connected you are to your dreams, the easier it will be to become conscious in them. When you write your dreams, you’re forced to reckon with what happens during each dream. Once you see dreams as valuable, you will be more likely to recognize dream signs and enhance awareness of your dreams.
Whenever you spot an obvious dream sign, such as dreaming of flying silver dog or an ex-partner or another unusual encounter that just would not happen in waking life, make a note of it. These signs will help you to distinguish when you are dreaming.
Mindfulness of dream and sleep
You are more likely to become lucid if you have a regular meditation practice. Mindfulness teacher and dreamwork experts, Ron Nain and Charlie Morley, developed mindfulness of dream and sleep approach to teach people how to harness the potential of different sleep states. The first, hypnagogic state, is the moment just before the sleep, which often includes a sensation of floating, falling or spinning. The second is the hypnopompic, the broad and refined state experienced when surfacing from sleep.
You can use the mindfulness within these states to encourage change and find inspiration. If you can have some awareness while dreaming and become fully lucid, you are in a powerful place to affect events within a lucid dream.
Once lucid, you gain access to a library of insight that resides in your dreaming mind.
As a reminder, it’s best to see your doctor if you think you have a sleep disorder or another mental health issue.
Good luck for tonight!
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